Along with total fail at trying to register myself for the Pinburgh pinball tournament yesterday, I braved a couple of stores for some holiday shopping. (Not the mall. I’m not that crazy right now.)

I went to a Michael’s Craft Store. It’s scary enough in its own right this time of year, but not as bad as the mall.

Michaels has decorations overflowing each of the front aisles. Plentiful ribbons, stockings, and table-top decorations are on sale at 30% to 70% off. This attracts almost as many shoppers as Michaels has ornaments (maybe more). Men, women, and children scoop up treasures as they browse the selections. (One child sobbed uncontrollably when his dad said, “no,” to a toy. It was part of the holiday soundtrack.)

Then, they (we) all stand in long lines to use the day’s special-bonus coupon to bring the cost to a manageable price. I was one of these shoppers.

A couple of weeks ago my daughter found some cool holiday glasses in front of the tree display. These glasses look like the 3D-movie glasses we wore when I was a kid — paper frames with a thin piece of plastic for lenses. But instead of red and blue 3D-lenses, these glasses have tiny laser etchings on them that turn points of light into simple little pictures.

They work awesomely with Christmas lights (which is probably why they were next to the trees). Put the glasses on and suddenly your holiday tree is covered in glowing snowmen … or gingerbread men … or candy canes! It’s awesome.

These will probably make fun stocking stuffers or small gifts for those who might appreciate altering their reality with a simple pair of glasses. I’m hoping we can go to a festival-of-light display and mix it up a little with some Frosty glasses.

After thinking the store was out of these Laser Glasses, I found a new stash of them behind the Christmas tree display. Yay! My kiddo will be happy (and I like them too)!

I kept finding new and interesting things around the store.

I was standing in one aisle trying to move past another shopper when a young child behind me said, “look, a poo pillow!” He sounded so innocent and cheerful.

I was sure I couldn’t possibly have heard him right (sometimes I am a little hard of hearing). So I turned around to find that, indeed, there was a pillow that looked like poo.

The entire bin was filled with emoji-inspired pillows, and one of them looked like brown poop with a happy face. (Because that’s exactly what everybody wants for Christmas, right? A good bowel movement? Did I just go there?) It can sit right next to the angry emoji pillow. I think they look nice together. Or maybe not.

You can also get purple poo (maybe in case you’ve been eating too many garden huckleberries).

Apparently, I am so not up on my emojis. I think I’d be happy with a smilie face or the pillow with glasses. I’m probably not very cool that way.

Emoji pillows, including a poo pillow.

Later, I found marquee letters on sale.

Marquees seem to be a popular home decoration these days. The signs are words or symbols, like an arrow, as well as stand-alone letters. They’re made of metal (and sometimes plastic) and dotted with LED lights, so they look like old theater signs. (You can put the writing on the wall and then make it glow.)

The letters were on sale for a great price (maybe 70% off?), and I think they would look pretty cool on our bookshelf or mantle. I’d have to decide if I wanted to spell a word (short ones cost less and fit better), or go with a simple initial for the family name …

Marquee letters. I should have set them up to spell something fun before I snapped the photo. Oh wait! It does kind of spell something. It’s almost “grace.” But then the last letter is really an “i,” so it’s “graci.” which is kind of a word too.

Then I noticed that each letter had a sticker on the side to indicate which one it was. Because apparently being letter-shaped might not do the trick for some people. Now I know with absolute certainty that the marquee letter that’s shaped like an “A” is, in fact, a letter A. (I did not check the poo pillow for a label, so maybe it’s really chocolate … happy, slightly melty chocolate.)

The one that looks like the letter C is a letter C. How handy! (I wonder how easily the stickers peel off?)

I guess the stickers would be helpful if the letters were stored on a shelf so that only the side shows.

And really, some days I do need this kind of visual aid, but not today. (And I still spent too much money.)

–Update 12/07/16–

I keep changing the title of this post because I wasn’t crazy about the first two titles. Plus I just wanted to experiment. So if you feel like you read this post before, then maybe you did. I’ll probably stick with “I [Emoji] Holiday Shopping,” for now. (Because in my mind I can put any emoji there based on my particular mood regarding holiday shopping. It varies. Some days the pillow emojis shown (above) describe it perfectly.

Also, my daughter saw my photo of the emoji pillows and said, “wow, emoji pillows for only $5 !” I guess she thought it was a good price. She also confirmed that the brown pillow is supposed to be poo. I’m kind of wondering if I should be blogging about poo pillows. And, really, I kind of wonder why they make poo pillows. And why they have poo emojis in the first place.

(I looked it up. Apparently in Japan the word for lucky is very similar to the shortened form of the Japanese word for poo. So it is sort of a pun, but basically poo=lucky. I mean I feel pretty lucky when I poo. It sure does beat the alternative. Emojis started as a Japanese thing in the first place, so I guess the poo stuck around. And everybody poos, right? Added 12/15/16.)

I also wonder if I should be proud of our geriatric cat when he leaves a little present outside the litter box. “Oh look, Fletcher, you made an lucky emoji. Good kitty!”